Page 92 of Cruel Kiss

"You are notfine,you're shaking?—"

"So are you!"

"Anton, get out," Ronan snarls. "Now."

Anton gets out. The door slams. And then it's just us in the garage under the fluorescent light. Ronan grabs me by bothshoulders and looks me over head to toe like he's checking for bullet holes.

"You are never," he growls, "going anywhere alone again. Not the store, not the corner, not the fuckingmailbox.Someone is with you at all times, inside the building, arm's length?—"

"No."

He stops. "What?"

"No." I step back out of his hands. "I'm not doing that. I amnotgoing back into a box because a scary old man bought me avocados."

"He gotwithin reachof you, Calista! In a public place! With Antonforty feet away!"

"Because ItoldAnton to stay up front!"

"Then you werewrong!"

"Sowere you,three days ago, when your man wasn't even on the corner and two fake cops walked right up mystairs!" That rips out of me loud and shrill, surprising us both. "You want to talk about who keeps getting it wrong? I'm the one who caught the fake badge! I'm the one who called Mercer! I'm the one who just stood in a produce aisle and kept my cool while the man who wants toownme told me my husband was a dead man walking! And I didn't flinch, I didn't cry, I got the mushrooms and I camehome.So do not stand there and tell me I need to be locked in abox."

"I am not putting you in a box!" he roars. It's the first time he's ever raised his voice at me, really raised it, but instead of scaring me, all it does is piss me off. "I am trying tokeep you alive!Doyou understand what he is? What he's done? What he wants to do!"

"Actually, yeah, I do!" I'm crying now, furious and shaking, smacking him repeatedly in the chest with the flat of my hand. "He told me you're finished, Ronan. And I thought to myself… What if he's right? What if Ilose you?"

His face breaks. All of it, all at once. The pakhan and the warehouse voice and the iron control, all of it just comes apart in front of me, and his eyes go wet and red-rimmed right there in the garage.

"You are not going to lose me, and I am not going to lose you, Cali. Do you hear me? I'd give Lev everything I've ever earned before I let him touch you or the kids." He pulls me in by the back of the neck, forehead to forehead. I can feel him shaking now too, both of us coming to pieces. "I made myself into a robot so I would never feel like this. I almost finished the job. And then you walked into a bar in a black dress and ruined all of it. But you know what? I would ruin it a thousand more times. I would shred every single thing I have before I would let that old man have you. I can't do it, Cali. I can't. I won't. So don't ask me to be calm when it comes to you. That ship sailed a long time ago."

Just like that, I stop fighting.

Because he's right and I'm right, too. We're not on opposite sides of a war. It's us versus the world.

"Okay," I whisper. "Okay."

"This is the hardest thing in the world for me to do, so understand me please.Please.I'm asking. I'm not deciding it. I'maskingyou: Stay safe with me."

I answer with a kiss. It rapidly turns fierce and hard in the space of a breath. He lifts me clean off my feet against the car, and I wrap around him, and there in the garage under the buzzing light, with the groceries still in the back seat, we come apart into each other in a way that has nothing left in it to hide behind.

"I'm not going anywhere," I tell him, when I can breathe again. "I chose you. I chose you."

"I know," he says, holding me like I might dissolve if he lets go for even a moment. "I know,kotyonok. I'll never stop being grateful for that."

26

RONAN

Seven days go by fast when you're counting down to something you can't stop.

When he stalked her down at the grocery store—an encounter that still gives me chills from cold-blooded fucking fury—Lev gave Cali one week to accept his offer. Today is the seventh day. She thinks I don't know that she's been counting, but I know damn well she keeps a little tally in her head. I've caught her staring at the calendar on the fridge a dozen times this morning, looking more and more nervous.

I told her not to worry about it. She told me that if I said the wordslet me handle itone more time, she'd handlemewith a cast-iron skillet. Fair enough.

So I do the thing I know how to do. I go to work.

The diner in Sheepshead Bay is an old, reliable spot. The waitress knows to seat us in the back and then forget we exist. I tip her a hundred before we even sit down, because it's cheaper than her memory if the FBI or their fake counterparts came along asking questions.